My youngest is one tomorrow. I’ve been having a retrospective moment or two.

Firstly, it is unreal how quickly this year has gone. I know we all say this but it’s actually a bit scary. I guess it is testament to how much rushing around having three (or any) children makes you do. Adding to that is: work, which has gone flip-tits in a good, but time and energy consuming, way; my wife’s blogging, which is absolutely flying; and that she published the book she’s dreamed of for many years. It’s no wonder it’s all a bit a blur!

This birthday has also made my think back to all our children’s births. It’s hard now to properly imagine them as newborns as they all look grown up their own ways.

All three of our births were very different and in all three my wife was a total superhero. The second stars of the show were the midwives, if any of you are reading this then much respect and admiration to you. They fought to keep Renee the centre of everything each time.

There’s the first midwife who, despite having been awake for well clear of 36 hours, told the entire labour ward that they could essentially stick their processes up their arse and that Renee was getting an epidural no matter what.

I’ll also never forget the midwife who delivered our second facing off against a group of doctors and consultants who wanted to take Renee to theatre as she’d been pushing for too long – “No! You will give her five more minutes”. And she was right, Clara was born naturally inside five minutes. What a legend!

And the third, which was actually relatively straightforward as both a go (I said relative ladies!). Well she just made it a great experience from start to finish.

So there you go, the product of my brain on a train journey shortly before my son’s birthday. Sorry for the slightly rambling nature of this post. I’m struggling to find time to write anything at the moment so if I have to squeeze what could have been two posts into one, then so be it.